Samus Stage Discussion

[TheNumber47]

One thing that I've definitely noticed playing Samus in PM is how she performs on many of the new stages. Samus has always had trouble covering top platforms or tall platforms in general because of floatiness, and she benefits greatly from flat stages due to her ability to projectile spam, and a lot of Samus metagame has been developed around her projectiles. In Melee, all of the standard legal stages are flat and have pretty reasonable platforms for her, but it seems in Project M some of the stages can be brutal. The neutral stages seems fine, but the counterpick stages seem pretty difficult. Stages like Skyloft and Metal Cavern have sloped ground that makes her projectiles either worse or much more difficult to use effectively. Stages like Rumble Falls and certain transformations in Dracula's Castle have platforms that are really difficult for Samus to cover at all. Platforms can also give a lot of recovery options to characters that Samus can't cover well, such as in Skyworld.

What does everyone else think about this? What are good/bad counterpick stages for Samus and what are some methods you've figured out to get around this. Discuss.

Note: This isn't a complaint thread, just trying to get some discussion started

 

[KoRLumen]

Bump. Lol. I'm also curious as to which stages Samus mains should gear for and avoid.

 

[Litt]

Depends on the opponent, if they are heavy and can kill you early, ban the smaller stages like WarioWare, Sonic's Stage and yoshi's story, everyone else the smaller stages to med ones are the best because Zair reaches across like the entire stage and it forces close combat which samus is great at, (everyone really needs to learn to up B OoS)

 

[Narpas_sword]

Do you rate Upsmash OOS as highly as UpB?

 

[Litt]

Do you rate Upsmash OOS as highly as UpB?

No, they are used for different purposes, Up OoS, is one of samus's best options/replies to being shield pressured, because the first 5 frames are invincible with the hitbox coming out on frame 5, (I am going off melee data here, not 100% if its the same in PM), where up smash OoS would be used to punish an unsafe move on shield where you have plenty of time to react, but where wavedash forward OoS into downsmash is still not quick enough.

 

[Narpas_sword]

good to know, i haven't had much time to implement usmash oos yet, wasn't sure if it was quick enough to be an alt for screw attack.
Will stick to upB for now.

 

[Litt]

good to know, i haven't had much time to implement usmash oos yet, wasn't sure if it was quick enough to be an alt for screw attack.
Will stick to upB for now.

Its kinda like jigs rest OoS when someone dash attacks her, just up smash OoS and they should get caught in at least one of its hits and then the rest

 

[M-O.M]

Can you still smash DI samus's UpSmash (the fire version)?

 

[Citricide]

I absolutely love Distant Planet and PS2

 

[Litt]

Can you still smash DI samus's UpSmash (the fire version)?

yes

 

[SoulOfSmash]

Hey everybody I'm kinda new to the competitive smash scene and kinda new Samus but I feel like I wana get out there and throw in my two cents. So for stages I like Dreamland the most, the huge sides help with her excellent horizontal recovery and the huge ceiling helps against characters that like to kill off the top like Fox or Mewtwo's up-throw. This is usually my pick against Spacies, Marth, Falcon, or really any other character with relatively bad horizontal recovery.

 

[Citricide]

Hey everybody I'm kinda new to the competitive smash scene and kinda new Samus but I feel like I wana get out there and throw in my two cents. So for stages I like Dreamland the most, the huge sides help with her excellent horizontal recovery and the huge ceiling helps against characters that like to kill off the top like Fox or Mewtwo's up-throw. This is usually my pick against Spacies, Marth, Falcon, or really any other character with relatively bad horizontal recovery.

Once you learn how to MC you will start to being disliking dream land and prefer stages such as PS2, Distant Planet, Wario Ware, Yoshi's Story. There is a guide on missile cancel available on the forum.

The reason why these stages are good for Samus because short hop missile cancel on these types of platforms are easier than they are with Dream Land. As you notice, dream land platforms are high off the ground and you can't get up on them with short hop. If you are fast with double jumping you can Double Jump MC on them. However all samus players differ this is what i've learned playing her so far.

My least favorite stages are Final Destination, Smashville and The Sonic stage. Platforms are essential for Samus to establish good zoning with her missile cancels. However you can still MC on these stages just fine you will just have to short hop and right before you land fire a missile.

 

[SoulOfSmash]

Once you learn how to MC you will start to being disliking dream land and prefer stages such as PS2, Distant Planet, Wario Ware, Yoshi's Story. There is a guide on missile cancel available on the forum.

The reason why these stages are good for Samus because short hop missile cancel on these types of platforms are easier than they are with Dream Land. As you notice, dream land platforms are high off the ground and you can't get up on them with short hop. If you are fast with double jumping you can Double Jump MC on them. However all samus players differ this is what i've learned playing her so far.

My least favorite stages are Final Destination, Smashville and The Sonic stage. Platforms are essential for Samus to establish good zoning with her missile cancels. However you can still MC on these stages just fine you will just have to short hop and right before you land fire a missile.

Yeah I'm learning the MC stuff still but I do know all the stages you mentioned are great for her. PS2 is another one of my favorites and Distant Planet I just recently realized is an excellent stage as well. However I'm not really a fan of Warioware the small size is great for her getting the kills but she can't really use her good recovery when she's dead, idk personal preference I guess. Also I always have loved Fountain Of Dreams too, the platforms might not be great for MCing but high ceiling, decent sized sides, and fun things you can do with D-Smashing on the moving platforms.

 

[M-O.M]

I personally don't think samus' recovery is that good as everyone seems to think so in project m. Once you know how to edgeguard her grapple its pretty bad. And samus in melee used to get kill by edgeguarding people, but now, a lots of characters recovery got buff wich makes it harder to kill an opponent. That's why, I would prefer to fight on a small stage with platforms like yoshi story or fountain of dreams or even battlefield.

 

[ph00tbag]

Well, Samus's recovery when she has all of her options has always been strong because of its mix-up potential. For instance, in Melee, when you were in a range where you could sweetspot with grapple, you could actually so some really wacky stuff with AD grapple (mostly people did upward AD into grapple, but there's so much more available to you that people just don't really use enough). Then you have the double jump option, and FF into Screw Attack to punish lazy attempts to hard counter the grapple. You also have a lot of opportunities to bait bad edgeguards because of bomb jumps. You can mix up dropping a bomb with attacking, because most people will try to be in a position to punish bomb cool-down on reaction rather than just hard counter it, so you can manipulate them by dj fairing.

All in all, Samus does occasionally have to take a risk with dj fair every so often to keep her opponent honest while she recovers, which is a weakness in her option set. Turnaround CSC will give her the option to space a bit farther back with bair (this would stronger if she had 64 bair HINT HINT), so she has that.

While Samus has indeed lost the ability to recover from anywhere on a vertical wall from Melee, the ability to manually grapple cancel, and reel cancel, as well as the ability to grapple the ledge three times as opposed to once are more than enough buffs to counteract the nerf.

All this said, if you successfully steal Samus's double jump, and cut off all three grapple attempts, then yeah, her recovery's pretty poopy.

 

[M-O.M]

Well, Samus's recovery when she has all of her options has always been strong because of its mix-up potential. For instance, in Melee, when you were in a range where you could sweetspot with grapple, you could actually so some really wacky stuff with AD grapple (mostly people did upward AD into grapple, but there's so much more available to you that people just don't really use enough).

When an opponent is holding the ledge and you have to grapple to take the ledge, does it still do damage (or hitstun)? because if not, the opponent can stay on the ledge, when he feels like it, drop down with a nair or bair (depending of the character) and intercept you coming up and grabing the ledge.

 

[Litt]

When an opponent is holding the ledge and you have to grapple to take the ledge, does it still do damage (or hitstun)? because if not, the opponent can stay on the ledge, when he feels like it, drop down with a nair or bair (depending of the character) and intercept you coming up and grabing the ledge.

At least in melee you can tether the stage for 8 seconds, and your opponent could only hold ledge for 10 before having to let go. With 3 available grapples at your disposal, you can cancel them into a fresh one, and have 24 seconds to wait out an opponent, if they do come down with a nair, go into an up b, and wall tech if they try to stage spike you with their attempted edgeguard, then just recover normally.

 

[M-O.M]

At least in melee you can tether the stage for 8 seconds, and your opponent could only hold ledge for 10 before having to let go. With 3 available grapples at your disposal, you can cancel them into a fresh one, and have 24 seconds to wait out an opponent, if they do come down with a nair, go into an up b, and wall tech if they try to stage spike you with their attempted edgeguard, then just recover normally.

Than they can just stay on the ledge and regrab it, and roll at the right time when you up b like used to do to edgeguard characters like marth in melee for exemple. If they see you trying to come up using the grapple they can react and hit you with an areal... Am i missing something there?

So instead on picking on stage where you can recover at high percent you should chose a stage where you can kill your opponent fast, in my opinion.

 

[Litt]

Umm, it really depends on the MU, some characters can kill samus with a throw at 90+ at some stages, if you play samus properly and zone correctly, a medium stage is always ideal, M-O.M, I doubt you are playing against high enough calibur opponents to make that claim yet, but Im just fishing because you made your account 3 days ago

 

[ph00tbag]

When an opponent is holding the ledge and you have to grapple to take the ledge, does it still do damage (or hitstun)? because if not, the opponent can stay on the ledge, when he feels like it, drop down with a nair or bair (depending of the character) and intercept you coming up and grabing the ledge.

It was like that in melee. It usually was only so effective since Samus is super heavy. As for nairs off stage, I'm kinda surprised you don't think Screw Attack would beat it.

 

[Litt]

screw attack trades with nairs I thought? as for what he was talking about, no the zair when it targets the ledge does not have an active hitbox like it did in melee, but in PM you can cancel the grapple into another jump, into nair, up B, wall jump, another tether (3 max before you are sorry outa luck), ect...

 

[ph00tbag]

Last I checked, Screw Attack was still invincible when its first hitbox came out. It's all about timing.

 

[Litt]

ahh I see the misunderstanding... @ ph00tbag yes samus is invins for the first few frames, but the invins only overlaps with the attack hitboxes for only 1 frame, and even then, if it doesnt make contact with the enemy, the nair will trade and win out.

 

[ph00tbag]

ahh I see the misunderstanding... @ ph00tbag yes samus is invins for the first few frames, but the invins only overlaps with the attack hitboxes for only 1 frame, and even then, if it doesnt make contact with the enemy, the nair will trade and win out.

It's all about timing.

 

[Litt]

I mean, im not saying its hard, but there are better options out there. Also most people wont jump out with a nair to challenge an UP B, because they will be put in a worse off position

 

[ph00tbag]

But this all started because I offered up tether canceling into Screw Attack as a counter to people trying to challenge reeling in with falling nair.

 

[M-O.M]

Last I checked, Screw Attack was still invincible when its first hitbox came out. It's all about timing.

Back in melee, i think UpB (Screw attack) was only invincible when you were on the grounf for like the first 4 frames. I don't think it had any invincibility in the air, so that's why some move might beat it when recovering.

And I played a couple of games and it changed my previous perspective of samus's recovery. I now think the grapple trick, where you let go (for 3 times) is really good for mindgames and recovering. Thanks for the advice by the way Barbie

 

[MonkUnit]

Grounded upB is invincible frames 1-5 and hits on frame 4. Aerial upB is invincible frames 1-3 and hits on frame 4.

 

[ph00tbag]

That's odd. I feel like I've definitely beaten a lot of off-stage challenges by just using Screw Attack early.

 

[Narpas_sword]

of course you can. you just have to hit their hurtbox before their hitbox hits your hurtbox.

Theres no such thing as aerial priority, only ground moves.
In the air its only spacing. (and of course, if a move creates intangible hutboxes, that counts as spacing)

 

[ph00tbag]

Theres no such thing as aerial priority, only ground moves.
In the air its only spacing. (and of course, if a move creates intangible hutboxes, that counts as spacing)

I can't speak for Screw Attack, but for most specials, that's not actually the case. Specials, unless otherwise stated, clank with everything.